Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year B

Twenty-first Ordinary Sunday

Images

 

Food and sustenance

Points to note

 

This week’s reading is the last of a series of readings centred around the account of the feeding of the five thousand in Jn. For the five weeks, the readings will be laden with theological themes of: the feeding (Sunday 17); true bread (Sunday 18); the person of Jesus (Sunday 19); Jesus as bread (Sunday 20); and accepting Jesus (Sunday 21).

While it makes sense to present them in such a cycle to adults, it is very difficult for children. I have therefore interpreted it as: preparing the meal (Sunday 17); what we eat (Sunday 18); who we eat with (Sunday 19); the wider church who shares the bread (Sunday 20); and what to do after the meal (Sunday 21).

In all instances, it is important to emphasise the personal and the everyday occurrences that children encounter at meals and parallel them with the meal for their spiritual world.

Liturgy

Acclamation

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life: 

you have the message of eternal life.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Explain that Jesus has just told the Jews that he is the Bread of Life.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St John

(Jn6: 60-69)

After hearing his doctrine many followers of Jesus said, “This is difficult to believe.  How could anyone accept it?”  Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and said, “Does this upset you?  What if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before?

“It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer.

The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

“But there are some of you who do not believe.”  For Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.  He went on, “This is why I have told you that no one can come to me unless the Father allows him.”  After this, many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him.

Then Jesus said to the Twelve, “What about you, do you want to go away too?”  Simon Peter answered, “Lord, who shall we go to?  You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord

Discussion

What do you do when you finish a meal?  The children better be those who will be helping Mom and Dad to clear up the dishes and put out the garbage.  If there are guests at the dinner, we entertain the guests.  We definitely do not rush off and lock ourselves into our bedroom with the Playstation!!

Likewise, discuss what we do when we finish the mass.  Some of us stay back to chat with our friends over coffee morning. Some of us go to Sunday School. Some help to put away the chairs. There are also others who attend other meetings and activities and choir practices, youth meetings, St Vincent de Paul meetings.   

Get the children to come up with any other post-mass activities.  Take time to explain what these groups and activities do. Not very nice is it if everyone rushes off home straight after mass?  Get the children to imagine how such a church would look like and whether they would feel welcomed in such a church.

It is a bit like some of the people in the reading who could not accept the food that Jesus is to give and left, leaving Jesus all alone with his disciples.

By the way, you may wish to take the opportunity to remind children not to run off from mass too early.  After all, somebody left the first mass (the Last Supper) early too and we don’t want to be like him, do we?

As we have discussed a few weeks ago, the physical food we eat gives us physical strength to do physical work.  What kind of physical work do we do?  Homework, housework, play, etc.  What happens to the food, though, if we were to eat it all that food and do not do any work?  Well, take this politely:  it comes out in the toilet and is useless to anybody.

Likewise, the spiritual food we eat at mass gives us spiritual strength to do spiritual work.  What kind of spiritual work do we do?  Love, pray and do good deeds.What happens to the spiritual food, though, if we were to eat it all that spiritual food and do not do any spiritual work?  Well, take this politely:  it probably comes out in a spiritual toilet and is useless to God.  We wouldn’t want that to happen, do we?  Discuss specific things we could do to avoid such a situation, 

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year A

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Images

The Pope and the structure of the Church

Points to note

There is a board inside the Westminster Catholic Cathedral in London, which lists down the names of all the Popes and next to them, the list of the leading bishops in England at that time.  There are two ideas here which are important.  Each bishop is consecrated a bishop by another bishop, who has been consecrated by another bishop, who has been consecrated by another bishop, and so on, who has been consecrated by another bishop, who has been consecrated by one of the Apostles.  This is known as the Apostolic Succession, the principle that every Catholic bishop traces his lineage back to the Apostles and we have the list of bishops to prove it.  Every diocese in the world keeps such a list of its own line of bishops.  This list that traces back to the Apostles is our proof that what our bishops teach is the same as what the Apostles, and Jesus, taught.

The other is one of communion.  Every Catholic owes allegiance to his or her local bishop.  We are said to be in communion with our bishop.  Each bishop is in turn in communion with the Pope.  Therefore, each Catholic is communion with each other through his or her communion with the local bishop who is in communion with other bishops through his communion with the Pope.

In Year A, we discuss the structure of the Church while, in Year B, we explain how the Pope is elected and, in Year C, we discuss the Apostolic Succession.  In this leaflet you may need to do a bit of research to get some of the details to share with the children.  You can normally get the statistics about your diocese in your diocesan directory, a copy of which should be in your parish office.  The historical details is normally available in Wikipedia.  Doing the research is quite interesting and often it leads you to other little nuggets of interesting information you may not be aware of.  Have fun.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.

And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Jesus has just been debating with some Jews and Pharisees.

The Lord be with you.

All:   And also with you.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Matthew

All:   Glory to you O Lord

(Mt 16:13-20)

When Jesus came to the region of Ceasarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  “But you,” he said, “who do you say I am?”  Then Simon Peter spoke up, “You are the Christ,” he said, “the Son of the living God.”  Jesus replied, “Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man!  Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.  So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.  And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.”  Then he gave the disciples strict orders not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

This is the Word of the Lord

Dialogue

Who is the head of the Church?  Jesus.  Explain that Jesus does not take care of the entire Church by himself and he has a lot of people to help him.  He has the Pope to help him.  The Pope helps Jesus to take care of all Catholics throughout the world, all one billion of us.  The Pope wears white and lives in Rome.  He has a huge church called St Peter’s Basilica.  This is because the first Pope was St Peter.

The Pope could not possibly take care of all Catholics, too.  So he has over 5,000 bishops to help him.  Most of these bishops take care of an area called a diocese.  Some dioceses are larger than others and are called archdioceses.  We are in the Diocese/Archdiocese of [name of diocese/archdiocese], which includes [list the areas covered by your diocese].  There are more than [number of diocese] Catholics in our diocese/archdiocese.  The bishop who is appointed to help the Pope take care of all Catholics in our diocese is Bishop/Archbishop [name of your bishop], who wears purple and lives in [principal city of your diocese].  His church is called [name of cathedral] Cathedral.

Even Bishop/Archbishop [name of bishop] needs help to take care of so many Catholics.  So, there are over [number of priests] priests to help them.  There are 400,000 priests helping bishops throughout the world.  Many of these priests help take care of a parish.  We are in the parish of [name of your parish] and there are [number of weekly attendance] people in our parish who come to our church for mass.  Priests normally wear black except in hot countries.

Sometimes, priests may have brothers and sisters to help them do God’s work.  These brothers and sisters run schools, orphanages and hospitals or they may do other work like praying for us in monasteries.  There are more than 700,000 of them throughout the world.

Bishops are important people.  They teach us the same things that the Apostles have been teaching.  So, when the Pope picks someone to succeed him, he will choose the next bishop very carefully and ensure that they are well trained.  The new bishop will be consecrated a bishop by several bishops, who themselves have been consecrated a bishop by several other bishops, laying their hands on the new bishop.  Having these other bishops there is the guarantee that the new bishop is a genuine Catholic bishop, who can trace his lineage back to the Apostles.  You can explain the Apostolic Succession in these simple terms and that the Apostles were the only bishops who were consecrated bishops by Jesus himself.

Someone once said that it is a bit like knowing who your father is.  This is quite true: every diocese in the world has a secret archive, which must include, among other things, the list of all the bishops in that diocese from the very beginning and the Pope in communion for each bishop.  While our diocese was started in [year of establishment of your diocese], we can also trace the line back to the first bishop of [first diocese in your country] in [year first diocese was set up].  

You can find out more about priests and bishops in the Church here.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year C

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Images

Prejudice and religious tolerance

Points to note

There are many points in this reading but we should concentrate in this session on just one and I have chosen the last line of the reading.  This can be a difficult line in this rather competitive age.  Sensitivities should be given to the reality that many children today are placed in a very competitive environment – to be the first in the class; the best at ballet; the fastest swimmer in school.

We will concentrate on the prejudices that children encounter.  Be careful: if you assume that children have their own prejudices to tell, that is a prejudice in itself.  Then we develop it into their response.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

If anyone loves me, he will keep my word,

and my Father will love him,

and we shall come to him.

Alleluia!

Gospel

The Lord be with you.

All:   And with your spirit.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Luke

All:   Glory to you O Lord

(Lk 13: 22-30)

Through towns and villages Jesus went teaching, making his way to Jerusalem.  Someone said to him, “Sir, will there be only a few saved?”  He said to them, “Try your best to enter by the narrow door, because I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.

“Once the master of the house has got up and locked the door, you may find yourself knocking on the door, saying, “Lord, open to us.” But they will answer. “I do not know where you come from.”  Then you will find yourself saying, “We once ate and drank in your company; you taught in our streets.”  But he will reply, “I do not know where you come from.  Away from me, all you wicked men!”

“Then there will be weeping and grinding of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves turned outside.  And men from east and west, from north and south, will come to take their places at the feast of the kingdom of God.

“Yes, there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.”

This is the Word of the Lord

Dialogue

Do you know what an assumption is? No, we are not talking about the assumption like the Assumption of Our Lady we celebrated.  Explain the meaning of the word.  Then explain that people who makes assumptions about others before they meet them are said to have a prejudice.

Have you ever seen anybody having a prejudice against some one else?  Be careful that we don’t put words into the children’s mouth.  Let’s not spoil innocence.  Discuss events that the children have encountered.  Where the children have been subject to prejudice, be encouraging and supportive.  Concentrate on the children’s response rather than the actions of the other person.  If a child discusses a prejudice that he or she has, thank the child and be encouraging that he or she has come to that realisation.

Explain that long ago, Jews believe that only they can go to heaven.  That too was an assumption.  That too was a prejudice.  Explain that some Jews didn’t bother to behave themselves since they assumed that they will go to heaven anyway.  It also meant that they looked down on the efforts of non-Jews who were trying to be good because they believed that no matter how good a non-Jew is, he can’t go to heaven.

Discuss how we see the other religions?  Do we still think that way at all?  Explain that the Church teaches that all people can go to heaven and Catholics can go elsewhere if they don’t behave themselves.  In that sense, God does not have favourite children.

So, what does it mean for us?  Explain that this means that we still need to make sure that we behave even though we have already been baptised as a Catholic.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year B

Twenty-first Ordinary Sunday

Images
 

Food and sustenance

Points to note
 

This week’s reading is the last of a series of readings centred around the account of the feeding of the five thousand in Jn. For the five weeks, the readings will be laden with theological themes of: the feeding (Sunday 17); true bread (Sunday 18); the person of Jesus (Sunday 19); Jesus as bread (Sunday 20); and accepting Jesus (Sunday 21).

While it makes sense to present them in such a cycle to adults, it is very difficult for children.  I have therefore interpreted it as: preparing the meal (Sunday 17); what we eat (Sunday 18); who we eat with (Sunday 19); the wider church who shares the bread (Sunday 20); and what to do after the meal (Sunday 21).

In all instances, it is important to emphasise the personal and the everyday occurrences that children encounter at meals and parallel them with the meal for their spiritual world.

Liturgy

Acclamation

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life: 

you have the message of eternal life.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Explain that Jesus has just told the Jews that he is the Bread of Life.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St John

(Jn 6: 60-69)

After hearing his doctrine many followers of Jesus said, “This is difficult to believe.  How could anyone accept it?”  Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and said, “Does this upset you?  What if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before?

“It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer.

The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

“But there are some of you who do not believe.”  For Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.  He went on, “This is why I have told you that no one can come to me unless the Father allows him.”  After this, many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him.

Then Jesus said to the Twelve, “What about you, do you want to go away too?”  Simon Peter answered, “Lord, who shall we go to?  You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord

Discussion

What do you do when you finish a meal?  The children better be those who will be helping Mom and Dad to clear up the dishes and put out the garbage.  If there are guests at the dinner, we entertain the guests.  We definitely do not rush off and lock ourselves into our bedroom with the Playstation!!

Likewise, discuss what we do when we finish the mass.  Some of us stay back to chat with our friends over coffee morning.  Some of us go to Sunday School.  Some help to put away the chairs.  There are also others who attend other meetings and activities and choir practices, youth meetings, St Vincent de Paul meetings.  

Get the children to come up with any other post-mass activities.  Take time to explain what these groups and activities do.  Not very nice is it if everyone rushes off home straight after mass?  Get the children to imagine how such a church would look like and whether they would feel welcomed in such a church.

It is a bit like some of the people in the reading who could not accept the food that Jesus is to give and left, leaving Jesus all alone with his disciples.

By the way, you may wish to take the opportunity to remind children not to run off from mass too early.  After all, somebody left the first mass (the Last Supper) early too and we don’t want to be like him, do we?

As we have discussed a few weeks ago, the physical food we eat gives us physical strength to do physical work.  What kind of physical work do we do?  Homework, housework, play, etc.  What happens to the food, though, if we were to eat it all that food and do not do any work?  Well, take this politely:  it comes out in the toilet and is useless to anybody.

Likewise, the spiritual food we eat at mass gives us spiritual strength to do spiritual work.  What kind of spiritual work do we do?  Love, pray and do good deeds. What happens to the spiritual food, though, if we were to eat it all that spiritual food and do not do any spiritual work?  Well, take this politely:  it probably comes out in a spiritual toilet and is useless to God.  We wouldn’t want that to happen, do we?  Discuss specific things we could do to avoid such a situation,